Canned coconut milk is one of my favorite ingredients to use in recipes; it’s a fantastic substitute for heavy cream in both sweet and savory dishes such as smoothies, milkshakes, pies, puddings, soups, or curries.

And if you have dairy allergies or are vegan, or even if you just want to try something new and absolutely delicious, coconut milk is the perfect ingredient to make rich and creamy ice cream without any actual cream.

Stir all ingredients (minus optional add-ins) together in a bowl. If you have an ice cream maker, simply transfer the mixture to your ice cream maker and churn according to manufacturer’s directions for your specific machine. If you don’t have an ice cream maker, you can freeze the mixture in ice cube trays, then blend the frozen ice cubes in a high-speed blender such as a Vitamix. Either eat the ice cream straight from the machine or freeze a few hours for a firmer texture. While homemade ice cream is best the day it is made, you can technically keep it frozen for up to a few weeks and thaw before eating.

I would love to know too! I think I’ll give it a try but freeze the 1 1/2cups of coconut milk then add to the Vitamix with the other 1/2 cup of milk. The reason being is that most of the recipes I see for the ice cream include ice or something frozen. Hence, another option would be to add all those ingredients into the Vitamix with some frozen fruit (strawberry, etc.) Honestly, at this point it just seems easier to mix up all the ingredients…freeze and then pop it into the Vitamix.

Hi Katie, I am trying this recipe with my new ice cream maker and it is turning out really icy and grainy and not at all creamy like your beautiful photo. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong but I really want to perfect this recipe because the flavour was amazing! Do you know if it turns out better without the ice cream maker and maybe coconut milk doesn’t turn out the best in them, I’m new to using one so I’m just experimenting!

Hmm that’s so weird. What brand of coconut milk are you using? Is it the full fat kind? There are a lot of recipes online for coconut milk based ice creams so it definitely should be creamy. Maybe it was a bad can of milk? Sometimes that happens where the can of coconut milk is mostly water.